Friday, February 13, 2009

Investigative Reporter Joe Kaufman Targeted For Silencing

I occasionally get email notifications of donations needed from the David Horowitz Freedom Center. One such email arrived to me yesterday. Rather than posting an excerpt, here is the whole thing:

Radical Muslims Target Investigative Reporter!

An urgent message from David Horowitz

Dear Friend,

Radical Muslims are using our court system to try to silence those who expose their terrorist connections. They've done it in Europe and Canada - and now they're trying it here in America.

In the case of investigative reporter Joe Kaufman, so far they've been successful.

Seven Muslim groups claim that Joe is a threat. They convinced a court that Joe "intends to threaten to take unlawful action...cause bodily injury...or threaten Plaintiffs or their members with immediate bodily injury."

On those grounds the court imposed a restraining order on him. And they are suing Joe for defamation to stop him from writing about Muslims in the future and to close down his web sites [here].

Joe reports and writes for my web site FrontPageMagazine [index to Joe's articles here] and for his own web sites. He has never threatened a Muslim in his life. But he has exposed facts they want to hide.

If Joe Kaufman loses, radical Muslims will know they can stop anyone from investigating and writing about any Muslim groups and individuals.

The reason Joe Kaufman is being targeted by these Muslim groups is that he monitors web sites run by Muslim charitable organizations, and he has identified money trails leading from some of these groups to terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

He discovered that funds from a group called the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) were going to Hamas, and he wrote about this on FrontPageMagazine. He also wrote that this group was sponsoring "Muslim Family Fun Day" at Six Flags Over Texas.

And he announced that he was going to hold a peaceful demonstration outside Six Flags on that day to expose this terrorist financing to the public.

Joe went ahead with his protest. It was peaceful and he broke no laws. He carried a sign which read, "Six Flags Over Terrorists," and he gave a speech to a small group of fellow demonstrators.

Within minutes of arriving at the park Joe was served with a restraining order, the result of a lawsuit brought by seven mosques and Muslim organizations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

ICNA - the group he was protesting - was not even one of the groups. These seven organizations claim that they were defamed by Kaufman's reports simply because their members are Muslim. Their lawsuit alleges that by reporting ICNA's financial activities and its links to terrorism, Kaufman harmed their reputations and the reputations of their members.

That was a year-and-a-half ago. But the court refused to throw out the lawsuit, so the case continues. Joe is being represented by a team of lawyers who are generously donating their time. But the other legal costs are considerable.

My Freedom Center has provided almost $20,000 towards these costs already. But now Joe's lawyers are trying to end the case in the appellate court. We need to raise an additional $25,000 for the immediate upcoming costs of Joe's defense. Please help us fight this case by clicking here to give.

Joe Kaufman has no money to spend on his defense. He has made a career of investigative journalism focusing on terrorism - something the mainstream media doesn't want to touch with a 10-foot pole, and therefore not a high-paying profession. He needs our help.

And there are other good reasons to support Joe's legal defense: all the other people working to fight Islamic terrorism - including me and my colleagues, other writers at FrontPageMagazine, and many other people who are doing this out of their passion for freedom and their desire to help protect America from the Islamo-Fascist threat.

A victory by the Muslim groups would be the first step in silencing all of us. This is a free speech issue and nothing more: Joe has not lied about, threatened, or touched any of the Muslims who are suing him, or any other Muslims for that matter. He simply reported the truth, and for that these groups are doing their best to silence him - and to intimidate the rest of us.

The lawsuit against Joe Kaufman is part of a strategy by these Muslim groups to bully us into silence. That's why we cannot let them win.

I am asking you to make a contribution of $25, $50, $100 or even more if you can, to help us raise the $25,000 we need right away to pay for Joe Kaufman's defense. Any amount you can send will help. Just click here to give. It's urgent!

Thanks in advance for your help.

Sincerely,

David HorowitzPresident and Founder

P.S. The outcome of this case is by no means predictable. Too many judges have shown themselves to care more about not offending Muslims than about free speech. We must raise the money to fight this case to the end!

So, you see, the threat to freedom of speech doesn't apply only to Geert Wilders, about whom many of us are blogging with a frenzy. The threat is right here in America, and Joe, with whom I am registered to co-blog, is on the front lines of this battle. Here. In the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Never mind the First Amendment to our Constitution.

This posting isn't a plea for donations, though contributing to Joe's defense fund is a good and important action to take.

What I want to point out is this....Right now, it is Geert Wilders who is being muzzled. Tomorrow, or another day not far in the future, the muzzle will be fastened upon us. Who will contribute to our defense funds?